What is the etymology of the word english

Do you ever wonder about the origins of words?

That is, their etymology.

Recently I was in Manila. The major language of the Philippines is Tagalog, which apparently comes form the word “tagá-ilog” — or “people of the river”.

Which got me interested…

Where does “English” come from?

Logically you’d think it comes from the word “England” — the name of the country.

But actually, that isn’t necessarily the case.

It’s just as likely, for example, that “England” was called so because that’s where the “Speakers of English” were. Which actually seems to be the case.

Supposedly, the word “English” is a corruption of the word “Anglish” — or, the “Language of the Angles”, one of the Germanic tribes that, along with the Saxons and the Jutes (collectively the “Anglo-Saxons”), invaded and colonised Britain from the 5th century after the Romans left. The Anglo-Saxons came from what is now northwest Germany, west Denmark and the Netherlands… and supposedly the Angles were called that because the place they came from—the Jutland peninsula—was shaped like a fish hook. The noun “angle” was derived from the Indo-European word “ank” meaning “to bend”, and the word “angle” entered the language in the Old English period and was used to mean “hook for fishing” (which of course is why we also call finishing “Angling”).

So there we have it.

[Julian]

P.S. If you want to speak British English, check out the first lesson of my best selling British English course, British Stories — do it here free.

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Although @drm65 and @T.E.D. have given correct answers to the original question, I thought I would deal with the “not Angles but Angels” reference raised in the comments on the question by @Joe Blow.

The “not Angles but Angels” story has no bearing on the derivation of “English,” but it is a real story related by Bede in The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, book 2, chapter 1, near the end of the chapter. Bede relates a story concerning Pope Gregory the Great encountering some English slaves for sale in the marketplace at Rome (this was before he became Pope himself, though). When told that they were pagans, he said:

‘Heu, pro dolor!’ inquit, ‘quod tam lucidi uultus homines tenebrarum auctor possidet, tantaque gratia frontispicii mentem ab interna gratia uacuam gestat!’ Rursus ergo interrogauit, quod esset uocabulum gentis illius. Responsum est, quod Angli uocarentur. At ille: ‘Bene,’ inquit; ‘nam et angelicam habent faciem, et tales angelorum in caelis decet esse coheredes. (Ecclesiastical History II.i)

Which translates as:

“Alas! what pity,” said he, “that the author of darkness is possessed of men of such fair countenances; and that being remarkable for such graceful aspects, their minds should be void of inward grace.” He therefore again asked, what was the name of that nation? and was answered, that they were called Angles. “Right,” said he, “for they have an Angelic face, and it becomes such to be co-heirs with the Angels in heaven.” (Source, translator uncertain but likely L.C. Jane’s 1903 edition)

The exact phrase “non angli sed angeli” does not appear in the original Latin as you can see; it is a later distillation of the basic sentiment into a more succinct construction.

The original is much more fun than this translation; it’s basically an opportunity for Gregory — or for Bede — to show off his Latinity by making some amusing puns. I’m not fully familiar with how the story has been received in the centuries since Bede wrote, but as Joe Blow’s reference demonstrates, it retains some limited currency even today.

Lastly, note that it is not certain that the incident occurred, or if it did, that this is an accurate report. Fair and unbiased reporting of history was not a high priority for Bede, who was after all writing an ecclesiastical history connecting England more firmly to the rest of Christendom.

English is a West Germanic language that originated from Ingvaeonic languages brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain. Their language originated as a group of Ingvaeonic languages which were spoken by the settlers in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages, displacing the Celtic languages (and, possibly, British Latin) that had previously been dominant. Old English reflected the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms established in different parts of Britain. The Late West Saxon dialect eventually became dominant. A significant subsequent influence on the shaping of Old English came from contact with the North Germanic languages spoken by the Scandinavian Vikings who conquered and colonized parts of Britain during the 8th and 9th centuries, which led to much lexical borrowing and grammatical simplification. The Anglian dialects had a greater influence on Middle English.

After the Norman conquest in 1066, Old English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman (also known as Anglo-Norman French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English or Anglo-Saxon era, as during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English. The conquering Normans spoke a Romance langue d’oïl called Old Norman, which in Britain developed into Anglo-Norman. Many Norman and French loanwords entered the local language in this period, especially in vocabulary related to the church, the court system and the government. As Normans are descendants of Vikings who invaded France, Norman French was influenced by Old Norse, and many Norse loanwords in English came directly from French. Middle English was spoken to the late 15th century. The system of orthography that was established during the Middle English period is largely still in use today. Later changes in pronunciation, however, combined with the adoption of various foreign spellings, mean that the spelling of modern English words appears highly irregular.

Early Modern English – the language used by William Shakespeare – is dated from around 1500. It incorporated many Renaissance-era loans from Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as borrowings from other European languages, including French, German and Dutch. Significant pronunciation changes in this period included the Great Vowel Shift, which affected the qualities of most long vowels. Modern English proper, similar in most respects to that spoken today^{[citation needed]}, was in place by the late 17th century.

English as we know it today came to be exported to other parts of the world through British colonisation, and is now the dominant language in Britain and Ireland, the United States and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many smaller former colonies, as well as being widely spoken in India, parts of Africa, and elsewhere. Partially due to influence of the United States and its globalized efforts of commerce and technology, English took on the status of a global lingua franca in the second half of the 20th century. This is especially true in Europe, where English has largely taken over the former roles of French and (much earlier) Latin as a common language used to conduct business and diplomacy, share scientific and technological information, and otherwise communicate across national boundaries. The efforts of English-speaking Christian missionaries have resulted in English becoming a second language for many other groups.^[1][2]

Global variation among different English dialects and accents remains significant today.

Proto-English[edit]

English has its roots in the languages of the Germanic peoples of northern Europe. During the Roman Empire, most of the Germanic-inhabited area (Germania) remained independent from Rome, although some southwestern parts were within the empire. Some Germanics served in the Roman military, and troops from Germanic tribes such as the Tungri, Batavi, Menapii and Frisii served in Britain (Britannia) under Roman command. Germanic settlement and power expanded during the Migration Period, which saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire. A Germanic settlement of Britain took place from the 5th to the 7th century, following the end of Roman rule on the island. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that around the year 449 Vortigern, king of the Britons, invited the «Angle kin» (Angles allegedly led by the Germanic brothers Hengist and Horsa) to help repel invading Picts, in return for lands in the southeast of Britain. This led to waves of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. (The Chronicle was not a contemporaneous work, however, and cannot be regarded as an accurate record of such early events.)^[3] Bede, who wrote his Ecclesiastical History in AD 731, writes of invasion by Angles, Saxons and Jutes, although the precise nature of the invasion and settlement and the contributions made by these particular groups are the subject of much dispute among historians.^[4]

The languages spoken by the Germanic peoples who initially settled in Britain were part of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic language family. They consisted of dialects from the Ingvaeonic grouping, spoken mainly around the North Sea coast, in regions that lie within modern Denmark, north-west Germany and the Netherlands. Due to specific similarities between early English and Old Frisian, an Anglo-Frisian grouping is also identified, although it does not represent a node in the family tree.^[5]

These dialects had most of the typical West Germanic features, including a significant amount of grammatical inflection. Vocabulary came largely from the core Germanic stock, although due to the Germanic peoples’ extensive contacts with the Roman world, the settlers’ languages already included a number of loanwords from Latin.^[6] For instance, the predecessor of Modern English wine had been borrowed into early Germanic from the Latin vinum.

Old English[edit]

The Germanic settlers in the British Isles initially spoke a number of different dialects, which would develop into a language that came to be called Anglo-Saxon. It displaced the indigenous Brittonic Celtic (and the Latin of the former Roman rulers) in parts of the areas of Britain that later formed the Kingdom of England, while Celtic languages remained in most of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, and many compound Celtic-Germanic place names survive, hinting at early language mixing.^[7] Old English continued to exhibit local variation, the remnants of which continue to be found in dialects of Modern English.^[8] The four main dialects were Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon; the last of these formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop mainly from Mercian.

Old English was first written using a runic script called the futhorc, but this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish missionaries in the 8th century. Most literary output was in either the Early West Saxon of Alfred the Great’s time, or the Late West Saxon (regarded as the «classical» form of Old English) of the Winchester school inspired by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester and followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham («the Grammarian»). The most famous surviving work from the Old English period is the epic poem Beowulf, composed by an unknown poet.

The introduction of Christianity from around the year 600 encouraged the addition of over 400 Latin loan words into Old English, such as the predecessors of the modern priest, paper, and school, and a smaller number of Greek loan words.^[9] The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was also subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century (see below).

Most native English speakers today find Old English unintelligible, even though about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots.^[10] The grammar of Old English was much more inflected than modern English, combined with freer word order, and was grammatically quite similar in some respects to modern German. The language had demonstrative pronouns (equivalent to this and that) but did not have the definite article the. The Old English period is considered to have evolved into the Middle English period some time after the Norman conquest of 1066, when the language came to be influenced significantly by the new ruling class’s language, Old Norman.^[11][12]

Scandinavian influence[edit]

Vikings from modern-day Norway and Denmark began to raid parts of Britain from the late 8th century onward. In 865, however, a major invasion was launched by what the Anglo-Saxons called the Great Heathen Army, which eventually brought large parts of northern and eastern England (the Danelaw) under Scandinavian control. Most of these areas were retaken by the English under Edward the Elder in the early 10th century, although York and Northumbria were not permanently regained until the death of Eric Bloodaxe in 954. Scandinavian raids resumed in the late 10th century during the reign of Æthelred the Unready, and Sweyn Forkbeard eventually succeeded in briefly being declared king of England in 1013, followed by the longer reign of his son Cnut from 1016 to 1035, and Cnut’s sons Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut until 1042.

The Scandinavians, or Norsemen, spoke dialects of a North Germanic language known as Old Norse. The Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians thus spoke related languages from different branches (West and North) of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammatical systems were more divergent. It is likely that significant numbers of Norse speakers settled in the Danelaw during the period of Scandinavian control. Many place-names in those areas are of Scandinavian provenance (those ending in -by, for example); it is believed that the settlers often established new communities in places that had not previously been developed by the Anglo-Saxons. The extensive contact between Old English and Old Norse speakers, including the possibility of intermarriage that resulted from the acceptance of Christianity by the Danes in 878,^[13] undoubtedly influenced the varieties of those languages spoken in the areas of contact. Some scholars even believe that Old English and Old Norse underwent a kind of fusion and that the resulting English language might be described as a mixed language or creole. During the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the first half of the 11th century, a kind of diglossia may have come about, with the West Saxon literary language existing alongside the Norse-influenced Midland dialect of English, which could have served as a koine or spoken lingua franca. When Danish rule ended, and particularly after the Norman Conquest, the status of the minority Norse language presumably declined relative to that of English, and its remaining speakers assimilated to English in a process involving language shift and language death. The widespread bilingualism that must have existed during the process possibly contributed to the rate of borrowings from Norse into English.^[14]

Only about 100 or 150 Norse words, mainly connected with government and administration, are found in Old English writing. The borrowing of words of this type was stimulated by Scandinavian rule in the Danelaw and during the later reign of Cnut. However, most surviving Old English texts are based on the West Saxon standard that developed outside the Danelaw; it is not clear to what extent Norse influenced the forms of the language spoken in eastern and northern England at that time. Later texts from the Middle English era, now based on an eastern Midland rather than a Wessex standard, reflect the significant impact that Norse had on the language. In all, English borrowed about 2000 words from Old Norse, several hundred surviving in Modern English.^[14]

Norse borrowings include many very common words, such as anger, bag, both, hit, law, leg, same, skill, sky, take, window, and even the pronoun they. Norse influence is also believed to have reinforced the adoption of the plural copular verb form are rather than alternative Old English forms like sind. It is also considered to have stimulated and accelerated the morphological simplification found in Middle English, such as the loss of grammatical gender and explicitly marked case (except in pronouns).^[15] That is possibly confirmed by observations that simplification of the case endings occurred earliest in the north and latest in the southwest. The spread of phrasal verbs in English is another grammatical development to which Norse may have contributed (although here a possible Celtic influence is also noted).^[14]

Some scholars have claimed that Old English died out entirely and was replaced by Norse towards the end of the Old English period and as part of the transition to Middle English, by virtue of the Middle English syntax being much more akin to Norse than Old English.^[16] Other scholars reject this claim.^[17]

Middle English[edit]

Middle English is the form of English spoken roughly from the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 until the end of the 15th century.

For centuries after the Conquest, the Norman kings and high-ranking nobles in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles spoke Anglo-Norman, a variety of Old Norman, originating from a northern langue d’oïl dialect. Merchants and lower-ranked nobles were often bilingual in Anglo-Norman and English, whilst English continued to be the language of the common people. Middle English was influenced by both Anglo-Norman, and later Anglo-French (see characteristics of the Anglo-Norman language).

Until the 14th century, Anglo-Norman and then French were the language of the courts and government. Even after the decline of Norman, standard French retained the status of a formal or prestige language, and about 10,000 French (and Norman) loan words entered Middle English, particularly terms associated with government, church, law, the military, fashion, and food^[18] (see English language word origins and List of English words of French origin). The strong influence of Old Norse on English (described in the previous section) also becomes apparent during this period. The impact of the native British Celtic languages that English continued to displace is generally held to be very small, although a few scholars have attributed some grammatical forms, such as periphrastic «do», to Celtic influence.^[19][20] These theories have been criticized by a number of other linguists.^[21][22][23] Some scholars have also put forward hypotheses that Middle English was a kind of creole language resulting from contact between Old English and either Old Norse or Anglo-Norman.

English literature began to reappear after 1200, when a changing political climate and the decline in Anglo-Norman made it more respectable. The Provisions of Oxford, released in 1258, was the first English government document to be published in the English language after the Norman Conquest. In 1362, Edward III became the first king to address Parliament in English. The Pleading in English Act 1362 made English the only language in which court proceedings could be held, though the official record remained in Latin.^[24] By the end of the century, even the royal court had switched to English. Anglo-Norman remained in use in limited circles somewhat longer, but it had ceased to be a living language. Official documents began to be produced regularly in English during the 15th century. Geoffrey Chaucer, who lived in the late 14th century, is the most famous writer from the Middle English period, and The Canterbury Tales is his best-known work.

The English language changed enormously during the Middle English period, in vocabulary, in pronunciation, and in grammar. While Old English is a heavily inflected language (synthetic), the use of grammatical endings diminished in Middle English (analytic). Grammar distinctions were lost as many noun and adjective endings were levelled to -e. The older plural noun marker -en (retained in a few cases such as children and oxen) largely gave way to -s, and grammatical gender was discarded. Definite article þe appears around 1200, later spelled as the, first appearing in East and North England as a substitute for Old English se and seo, nominative forms of «that.»^[25]

English spelling was also influenced by Norman in this period, with the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds being spelled th rather than with the Old English letters þ (thorn) and ð (eth), which did not exist in Norman. These letters remain in the modern Icelandic and Faroese alphabets, having been borrowed from Old English via Old West Norse.

Early Modern English[edit]

English underwent extensive sound changes during the 15th century, while its spelling conventions remained largely constant. Modern English is often dated from the Great Vowel Shift, which took place mainly during the 15th century. The language was further transformed by the spread of a standardized London-based dialect in government and administration and by the standardizing effect of printing, which also tended to regularize capitalization. As a result, the language acquired self-conscious terms such as «accent» and «dialect».^[26] As most early presses came from continental Europe, a few native English letters such as þ and ð died out; for some time þe (modern «the») was written as ye. By the time of William Shakespeare (mid 16th — early 17th century),^[27] the language had become clearly recognizable as Modern English. In 1604, the first English dictionary was published, A Table Alphabeticall.

Increased literacy and travel facilitated the adoption of many foreign words, especially borrowings from Latin and Greek, often terms for abstract concepts not available in English.^[28] In the 17th century, Latin words were often used with their original inflections, but these eventually disappeared. As there are many words from different languages and English spelling is variable, the risk of mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, most notably in the West Country. During the period, loan words were borrowed from Italian, German, and Yiddish. British acceptance of and resistance to Americanisms began during this period.^[29]

Modern English[edit]

The first authoritative and full-featured English dictionary, the Dictionary of the English Language, was published by Samuel Johnson in 1755. To a high degree, the dictionary standardized both English spelling and word usage. Meanwhile, grammar texts by Lowth, Murray, Priestly, and others attempted to prescribe standard usage even further.

Early Modern English and Late Modern English, also called Present-Day English (PDE), differ essentially in vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from the Industrial Revolution and technologies that created a need for new words, as well as international development of the language. The British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the Earth’s land surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries. British English and North American English, the two major varieties of the language, are together spoken by 400 million people. The total number of English speakers worldwide may exceed one billion.^[30] The English language will almost certainly continue to evolve over time. With the development of computer and online environments (such as chat rooms, social media expressions, and apps), and the adoption of English as a worldwide lingua franca across cultures, customs, and traditions, it should not be surprising to see further shortening of words, phrases, and/or sentences.

Phonological changes[edit]

Introduction[edit]

Over the last 1,200 years or so, English has undergone extensive changes in its vowel system, but many fewer changes to its consonants.

In the Old English period, a number of umlaut processes affected vowels in complex ways, and unstressed vowels were gradually eroded, eventually leading to a loss of grammatical case and grammatical gender in the Early Middle English period. The most important umlaut process was *i-mutation (c. 500 CE), which led to pervasive alternations of all sorts, many of which survive in the modern language: e.g. in noun paradigms (foot vs. feet, mouse vs. mice, brother vs. brethren); in verb paradigms (sold vs. sell); nominal derivatives from adjectives («strong» vs. «strength», broad vs. breadth, foul vs. filth) and from other nouns (fox vs. «vixen»); verbal derivatives («food» vs. «to feed»); and comparative adjectives («old» vs. «elder»). Consonants were more stable, although velar consonants were significantly modified by palatalization, which produced alternations such as speak vs. speech, drink vs. drench, wake vs. watch, bake vs. batch.

The Middle English period saw further vowel changes. Most significant was the Great Vowel Shift (c. 1500 CE), which transformed the pronunciation of all long vowels. This occurred after the spelling system was fixed, and accounts for the drastic differences in pronunciation between «short» mat, met, bit, cot vs. «long» mate, mete/meet, bite, coat. Other changes that left echoes in the modern language were homorganic lengthening before ld, mb, nd, which accounts for the long vowels in child, mind, climb, etc.; pre-cluster shortening, which resulted in the vowel alternations in child vs. children, keep vs. kept, meet vs. met; and trisyllabic laxing, which is responsible for alternations such as grateful vs. gratitude, divine vs. divinity, sole vs. solitary.

Among the more significant recent changes to the language have been the development of rhotic and non-rhotic accents (i.e. «r-dropping»); the trap-bath split in many dialects of British English; and flapping of t and d between vowels in American English and Australian English.

Vowel changes[edit]

The following table shows the principal developments in the stressed vowels, from Old English through Modern English (C indicates any consonant):

Old English (c. 900 AD)	Middle English (c. 1400 AD)	Early Modern English (c. 1600 AD)	Modern English	Modern spelling	Examples
ɑː	ɔː	oː	oʊ əʊ (UK)	oa, oCe	oak, boat, whole, stone
æː, æːɑ	ɛː	eː	iː	ea	heal, beat, cheap
eː, eːo	eː	iː	ee, -e	feed, deep, me, be
iː, yː	iː	əi or ɛi	aɪ	iCe	ride, time, mice
oː	oː	uː	uː	oo, -o	moon, food, do
uː	uː	əu or ɔu	aʊ	ou	mouse, out, loud
ɑ, æ, æɑ	a	æ	æ	a	man, sat, wax
aː	ɛː	eɪ	aCe	name, bake, raven
e, eo	e	ɛ	ɛ	e	help, tell, seven
ɛː	eː	iː	ea, eCe	speak, meat, mete
i, y	ɪ	ɪ	ɪ	i	written, sit, kiss
o	o	ɔ	ɒ ɑ (US)	o	god, top, beyond
ɔː	oː	oʊ əʊ (UK)	oa, oCe	foal, nose, over
u	ʊ	ɤ	ʌ	u, o	buck, up, love, wonder
ʊ	ʊ	full, bull

The following chart shows the primary developments of English vowels in the last 600 years, in more detail, since Late Middle English of Chaucer’s time. The Great Vowel Shift can be seen in the dramatic developments from c. 1400 to 1600.

Neither of the above tables covers the history of Middle English diphthongs, the changes before /r/, or various special cases and exceptions. For details, see phonological history of English as well as the articles on Old English phonology and Middle English phonology/.

Examples[edit]

The vowel changes over time can be seen in the following example words, showing the changes in their form over the last 2,000 years:

	one	two	three	four	five	six	seven	mother	heart	hear
Proto-Germanic, c. AD 1	ainaz	twai	θriːz	feðwoːr	fimf	sehs	seβun	moːðeːr	hertoːː	hauzijanã
West Germanic, c. AD 400	ain	θriju	fewwur	moːdar	herta	haurijan
Late Old English, c. AD 900	aːn	twaː	θreo	feowor	fiːf	siks	sĕŏvon	moːdor	hĕŏrte	heːran, hyːran
(Late Old English spelling)	(ān)	(twā)	(þrēo)	(fēowor)	(fīf)	(six)	(seofon)	(mōdor)	(heorte)	(hēran, hȳran)
Late Middle English, c. 1350	ɔːn	twoː	θreː	fowər	fiːvə	siks	sevən	moːðər	hertə	hɛːrə(n)
(Late Middle English spelling)	(oon)	(two)	(three)	(fower)	(five)	(six)	(seven)	(mother)	(herte)	(heere(n))
Early Modern English, c. 1600	oːn >! wʊn	twuː > tuː	θriː	foːr	fəiv	siks	sevən	mʊðər	hert	heːr
Modern English, c. 2000	wʌn	tuː	fɔː(r)	faiv	sɪks	mʌðə(r)	hɑrt/hɑːt	hiːr/hiə
	one	two	three	four	five	six	seven	mother	heart	hear

Grammatical changes[edit]

The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to Latin, Greek, modern German and Icelandic. Old English distinguished among the nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases, and for strongly declined adjectives and some pronouns also a separate instrumental case (which otherwise and later completely coincided with the dative). In addition, the dual number was distinguished from the singular and plural.^[31]
Declension was greatly simplified during the Middle English period, when the accusative and dative cases of the pronouns merged into a single oblique case that also replaced the genitive case after prepositions. Nouns in Modern English no longer decline for case, except for the genitive.

Evolution of English pronouns[edit]

Pronouns such as whom and him (contrasted with who and he), are a conflation of the old accusative and dative cases, as well as of the genitive case after prepositions (while her also includes the genitive case). This conflated form is called the oblique case or the object (objective) case, because it is used for objects of verbs (direct, indirect, or oblique) as well as for objects of prepositions. (See object pronoun.) The information formerly conveyed by distinct case forms is now mostly provided by prepositions and word order. In Old English as well as modern German and Icelandic as further examples, these cases had distinct forms.

Although some grammarians continue to use the traditional terms «accusative» and «dative», these are functions rather than morphological cases in Modern English. That is, the form whom may play accusative or dative roles (as well as instrumental or prepositional roles), but it is a single morphological form, contrasting with nominative who and genitive whose. Many grammarians use the labels «subjective», «objective», and «possessive» for nominative, oblique, and genitive pronouns.

Modern English nouns exhibit only one inflection of the reference form: the possessive case, which some linguists argue is not a case at all, but a clitic (see the entry for genitive case for more information).

Interrogative pronouns[edit]

	Case	Old English	Middle English	Modern English
Masculine, feminine (person)	Nominative	hwā	who	who
Accusative	hwone, hwæne	whom	whom, who1
Dative	hwām, hwǣm
Instrumental
Genitive	hwæs	whos	whose
Neuter (thing)	Nominative	hwæt	what	what
Accusative	hwæt	what, whom
Dative	hwām, hwǣm
Instrumental	hwȳ, hwon	why	why2
Genitive	hwæs	whos	whose3

¹ — In some dialects «who» is used where formal English only allows «whom», though variation among dialects must be taken into account.

² — An explanation may be found in the last paragraph of this section of Instrumental case.

³ — Usually replaced by of what (postpositioned).

First person personal pronouns[edit]

	Case	Old English	Middle English	Modern English
Singular	Nominative	iċ	I, ich, ik	I
Accusative	mē, meċ	me	me
Dative	mē
Genitive	mīn	min, mi	my, mine
Plural	Nominative	wē	we	we1
Accusative	ūs, ūsiċ	us	us
Dative	ūs
Genitive	ūser, ūre	ure, our	our, ours

¹ — Old English also had a separate dual, wit («we two») etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.

Second person personal pronouns[edit]

Old and Middle English singular to the Modern English archaic informal

	Case	Old English	Middle English	Modern English
Singular	Nominative	þū	þu, thou	thou (you)
Accusative	þē, þeċ	þé, thee	thee (you)
Dative	þē
Genitive	þīn	þi, þīn, þīne, thy; thin, thine	thy, thine (your, yours)
Plural	Nominative	ġē	ye, ȝe, you	you1
Accusative	ēow, ēowiċ	you, ya
Dative	ēow
Genitive	ēower	your	your, yours

¹ — Note that the ye/you distinction still existed, at least optionally, in Early Modern English: «Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free» from the King James Bible.

Here the letter þ (interchangeable with ð in manuscripts) corresponds to th. For ȝ, see Yogh.

Formal and informal forms of the second person singular and plural

	Old English	Middle English	Modern English
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Case	Formal	Informal	Formal	Informal	Formal	Informal	Formal	Informal	Formal	Informal	Formal	Informal
Nominative	þū	ġē1	you	thou	you	ye	you
Accusative	þē, þeċ	ēow, ēowiċ	thee	you
Dative	þē	ēow
Genitive	þīn	ēower	your, yours	thy, thine	your, yours	your, yours

¹ — (Old English also had a separate dual, ġit («ye two») etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.)

Third person personal pronouns[edit]

	Case	Old English	Middle English	Modern English
Masculine singular	Nominative	hē	he	he
Accusative	hine	him	him
Dative	him
Genitive	his	his	his
Feminine singular	Nominative	hēo	heo, sche, ho, he, ȝho	she
Accusative	hīe	hire, hure, her, heore	her
Dative	hire
Genitive	hir, hire, heore, her, here	her, hers
Neuter singular	Nominative	hit	hit, it	it, they
Accusative	hit, it, him	it, them
Dative	him
Genitive	his	his	its, their
Plural1	Nominative	hīe	he, hi, ho, hie, þai, þei	they
Accusative	hem, ham, heom, þaim, þem, þam	them
Dative	him
Genitive	hira	here, heore, hore, þair, þar	their, theirs

¹ — The origin of the modern forms is generally thought to have been a borrowing from Old Norse forms þæir, þæim, þæira. The two different roots co-existed for some time, although currently the only common remnant is the shortened form ’em. Cf. also the demonstrative pronouns.

Examples[edit]

Beowulf[edit]

Beowulf is an Old English epic poem in alliterative verse. It is dated from the 8th to the early 11th centuries. These are the first 11 lines:

Hwæt! Wē Gār-Dena	in geārdagum,
þēodcyninga	þrym gefrūnon,
hū ðā æþelingas	ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scēfing	sceaþena þrēatum,
monegum mǣgþum,	meodosetla oftēah,
egsode eorlas.	Syððan ǣrest wearð
fēasceaft funden,	hē þæs frōfre gebād,
wēox under wolcnum,	weorðmyndum þāh,
oðþæt him ǣghwylc	þāra ymbsittendra
ofer hronrāde	hȳran scolde,
gomban gyldan.	Þæt wæs gōd cyning!

Which, as translated by Francis Barton Gummere, reads:

Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!

Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan[edit]

This is the beginning of The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan, a prose text in Old English dated to the late 9th century. The full text can be found at Wikisource.

Ōhthere sǣde his hlāforde, Ælfrēde cyninge, ðæt hē ealra Norðmonna norþmest būde. Hē cwæð þæt hē būde on þǣm lande norþweardum wiþ þā Westsǣ. Hē sǣde þēah þæt þæt land sīe swīþe lang norþ þonan; ac hit is eal wēste, būton on fēawum stōwum styccemǣlum wīciað Finnas, on huntoðe on wintra, ond on sumera on fiscaþe be þǣre sǣ. Hē sǣde þæt hē æt sumum cirre wolde fandian hū longe þæt land norþryhte lǣge, oþþe hwæðer ǣnig mon be norðan þǣm wēstenne būde. Þā fōr hē norþryhte be þǣm lande: lēt him ealne weg þæt wēste land on ðæt stēorbord, ond þā wīdsǣ on ðæt bæcbord þrīe dagas. Þā wæs hē swā feor norþ swā þā hwælhuntan firrest faraþ. Þā fōr hē þā giet norþryhte swā feor swā hē meahte on þǣm ōþrum þrīm dagum gesiglau. Þā bēag þæt land, þǣr ēastryhte, oþþe sēo sǣ in on ðæt lond, hē nysse hwæðer, būton hē wisse ðæt hē ðǣr bād westanwindes ond hwōn norþan, ond siglde ðā ēast be lande swā swā hē meahte on fēower dagum gesiglan. Þā sceolde hē ðǣr bīdan ryhtnorþanwindes, for ðǣm þæt land bēag þǣr sūþryhte, oþþe sēo sǣ in on ðæt land, hē nysse hwæþer. Þā siglde hē þonan sūðryhte be lande swā swā hē meahte on fīf dagum gesiglan. Ðā læg þǣr ān micel ēa ūp on þæt land. Ðā cirdon hīe ūp in on ðā ēa for þǣm hīe ne dorston forþ bī þǣre ēa siglan for unfriþe; for þǣm ðæt land wæs eall gebūn on ōþre healfe þǣre ēas. Ne mētte hē ǣr nān gebūn land, siþþan hē from his āgnum hām fōr; ac him wæs ealne weg wēste land on þæt stēorbord, būtan fiscerum ond fugelerum ond huntum, ond þæt wǣron eall Finnas; ond him wæs āwīdsǣ on þæt bæcbord. Þā Boermas heafdon sīþe wel gebūd hira land: ac hīe ne dorston þǣr on cuman. Ac þāra Terfinna land wæs eal wēste, būton ðǣr huntan gewīcodon, oþþe fisceras, oþþe fugeleras.

A translation:

Ohthere said to his lord, King Alfred, that he of all Norsemen lived north-most. He quoth that he lived in the land northward along the North Sea. He said though that the land was very long from there, but it is all wasteland, except that in a few places here and there Finns [i.e. Sami] encamp, hunting in winter and in summer fishing by the sea. He said that at some time he wanted to find out how long the land lay northward or whether any man lived north of the wasteland. Then he traveled north by the land. All the way he kept the waste land on his starboard and the wide sea on his port three days. Then he was as far north as whale hunters furthest travel. Then he traveled still north as far as he might sail in another three days. Then the land bowed east (or the sea into the land — he did not know which). But he knew that he waited there for west winds (and somewhat north), and sailed east by the land so as he might sail in four days. Then he had to wait for due-north winds, because the land bowed south (or the sea into the land — he did not know which). Then he sailed from there south by the land so as he might sail in five days. Then a large river lay there up into the land. Then they turned up into the river, because they dared not sail forth past the river for hostility, because the land was all settled on the other side of the river. He had not encountered earlier any settled land since he travelled from his own home, but all the way waste land was on his starboard (except fishers, fowlers and hunters, who were all Finns). And the wide sea was always on his port. The Bjarmians have cultivated their land very well, but they did not dare go in there. But the Terfinn’s land was all waste except where hunters encamped, or fishers or fowlers.^[32]

Ayenbite of Inwyt[edit]

From Ayenbite of Inwyt («the prick of conscience»), a translation of a French confessional prose work into the Kentish dialect of Middle English, completed in 1340:^[33]

Nou wille þet ye hou is
þet þis boc is Engliss of Kent.
Þis boc is vor men
Vor vader and vor moder and vor oþer
vor to vram alle manyere
þet ine ne no voul .
‘ ase god’ in his name ,
Þet þis boc made god him þet bread,
Of angles of hevene, and þerto his ,
And his þet he is . Amen.

The Canterbury Tales[edit]

The beginning of The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories in poetry and prose written in the London dialect of Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century:^[34]

Whan that Aprill with his shoures
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in
Of which vertu engendred is the ;
Whan Zephirus with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the his half cours ,
And smale maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open
(So in ),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge ,
To , in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they ,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That whan that they were .

Paradise Lost[edit]

The beginning of Paradise Lost, an epic poem in unrhymed iambic pentameter written in Early Modern English by John Milton and first published in 1667:

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s Brook that flow’d
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th’ Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.

Oliver Twist[edit]

A selection from the novel Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickens in Modern English and published in 1838:

The evening arrived: the boys took their places; the master in his cook’s uniform stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out, and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared, the boys whispered each other and winked at Oliver, while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger and reckless with misery. He rose from the table, and advancing, basin and spoon in hand, to the master, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity—

«Please, sir, I want some more.»

The master was a fat, healthy man, but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder, and the boys with fear.

«What!» said the master at length, in a faint voice.

«Please, sir,» replied Oliver, «I want some more.»

The master aimed a blow at Oliver’s head with the ladle, pinioned him in his arms, and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

See also[edit]

• Influence of French on English
• Phonological history of the English language
• Comparison of American and British English
• English phonology
• English studies
• Inkhorn debate
• Languages in the United Kingdom
• Middle English creole hypothesis
• Middle English declension
• History of the Scots language
• Changes to Old English vocabulary

Lists:

• List of dialects of the English language
• List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents
• Lists of English words of international origin

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Bill Bryson (1990). The Mother Tongue — English And How It Got That Way. William Morrow Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0380715435.
• David Crystal (2013). The Story of English in 100 Words. Picador. ISBN 978-1250024206.
• David Crystal (2015). Wordsmiths and Warriors: The English-Language Tourist’s Guide to Britain. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198729136.
• John McWhorter (2017). Words on the Move: Why English Won’t — and Can’t — Sit Still (Like, Literally). Picador. ISBN 978-1250143785.
• Hejná, Míša & Walkden, George. 2022. A history of English. (Textbooks in Language Sciences 9). Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6560337 . A history of English. Open Access.

External links[edit]

• The History of English Podcast
• The Spread of English Language (video)
• Penn Corpora of Historical English
• Scandinavian loans in Old and Middle English, and their legacy in the dialects of England and modern standard English

Chapter 3 the etymology of english words.1 are all english words really english?

As a matter of fact, they are — if we regard them in the light of present-day English. If, however, their origins are looked into, the picture may seem somewhat bewildering. A person who does not know English but knows French (Italian, Latin, Spanish) is certain to recognize a great number of familiar-looking words when skipping through an English book.

It is true that English vocabulary, which is one of the most extensive amongst the world’s languages contains an immense number of words of foreign origin, Explanations for this should be sought in the history of the language which is closely connected with the history of the nation speaking the language. In order to have a better understanding of the problem, it will be necessary to go through a brief survey of certain historical facts, relating to different epochs.

* * *

The first century В. С. Most of the territory now known to us as Europe is occupied by the Roman Empire. Among the inhabitants of the continent are Germanic tribes, «barbarians» as the arrogant Romans call them. Theirs is really a rather primitive stage of development, especially if compared with the high civilization and refinement of Rome. They are primitive cattle-breeders and know almost nothing about land cultivation. Their tribal languages contain only Indo-Europe-an and Germanic elements. The latter fact is of some importance for the purposes of our survey.

Now comes an event which brings an important change. After a number of wars between the Germanic tribes and the Romans these two opposing peoples come into peaceful contact. Trade is carried on, and the Germanic people gain knowledge of new and useful things. The first among them are new things to eat. It has been mentioned that Germanic cattle-breeding was on a primitive scale. Its only products known to the Germanic tribes were meat and milk. It is from the Romans that they learn how to make butter and cheese and, as there are naturally no words for these foodstuffs in their tribal languages, they are to use the Latin words to name them (Lat. butyrum, caseus). It is also to the Romans that the Germanic tribes owe the knowledge of some new fruits and vegetables of which they had no idea before, and the Latin names of these fruits and vegetables enter their vocabularies reflecting this new knowledge: cherry (Lat. cerasum), pear (Lat. pirum), plum (Lat. prunus), pea (Lat. pisum), beet (Lat. beta), pepper (Lat. piper). It is interesting to note that the word plant is also a Latin borrowing2 of this period (Lat. planta).

Here are some more examples of Latin borrowings of this period: cup (Lat. cuppa), kitchen (Lat. coquina), mill (Lat. molina), port (Lat. portus), wine (Lat. vinum).

The fact that all these borrowings occurred is in itself significant. It was certainly important that the Germanic tribal languages gained a considerable number of new words and were thus enriched. What was even more significant was that all these Latin words were destined to become the earliest group of borrowings in the future English language which was — much later — built on the basis of the Germanic tribal languages. Which brings us to another epoch, much closer to the English language as we know it, both in geographical and chronological terms.

The fifth century A. D. Several of the Germanic tribes (the most numerous amongst them being the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes) migrated across the sea now known as the English Channel to the British Isles. There they were confronted by the Celts, the original inhabitants of the Isles. The Celts desperately defended their lands against the invaders, but they were no match for the military-minded Teutons and gradually yielded most of their territory. They retreated to the North and South-West (modern Scotland, Wales and Cornwall). Through their numerous contacts with the defeated Celts, the conquerors got to know and assimilated a number of Celtic words (Mod. E. bald, down, glen, druid, bard, cradle). Especially numerous among the Celtic borrowings were place names, names of rivers, hills, etc. The Germanic tribes occupied the land, but the names of many parts and features of their territory remained Celtic. For instance, the names of the rivers Avon, Exe, Esk, Usk, Ux originate from Celtic words meaning «river» and «water».

Ironically, even the name of the English capital originates from Celtic Llyn + dun in which llyn is another Celtic word for «river» and dun stands for «a fortified hill», the meaning of the whole being «fortress on the hill over the river».

Some Latin words entered the Anglo-Saxon languages through Celtic, among them such widely-used words as street (Lat. strata via) and wall (Lat. vallum).

The seventh century A. D. This century was significant for the christianization of England. Latin was the official language of the Christian church, and consequently the spread of Christianity was accompanied by a new period of Latin borrowings. These no longer came from spoken Latin as they did eight centuries earlier, but from church Latin. Also, these new Latin borrowings were very different in meaning from the earlier ones. They mostly indicated persons, objects and ideas associated with church and religious rituals. E. g. priest (Lat. presbyter), bishop (Lat. episcopus), monk (Lat. monachus), nun (Lat. nonna), candle (Lat. candela).

Additionally, in a class of their own were educational terms. It was quite natural that these were also Latin borrowings, for the first schools in England were church schools, and the first teachers priests and monks. So, the very word school is a Latin borrowing (Lat. schola, of Greek origin) and so are such words as scholar (Lat. scholars(-is) and magister (Lat. magister).

From the end of the 8th c. to the middle of the 11th с. England underwent several Scandinavian invasions which inevitably left their trace on English vocabulary. Here are some examples of early Scandinavian borrowings: call, v., take, v., cast, v., die, v., law, n., husband, n. (< Sc. hus + bondi, i. e. «inhabitant of the house»), window n. (< Sc. vindauga, i. e. «the eye of the wind»), ill, adj., loose, adj., low, adj., weak, adj.

Some of the words of this group are easily recognizable as Scandinavian borrowings by the initial skcombination. E. g. sky, skill, skin, ski, skirt.

Certain English words changed their meanings under the influence of Scandinavian words of the same root. So, the O. E. bread which meant «piece» acquired its modern meaning by association with the Scandinavian braud. The О. Е. dream which meant «joy» assimilated the meaning of the Scandinavian draumr (cf. with the Germ. Traum «dream» and the R. дрёма).

1066. With the famous Battle of Hastings, when the English were defeated by the Normans under William the Conqueror, we come to the eventful epoch of the Norman Conquest. The epoch can well be called eventful not only in national, social, political and human terms, but also in linguistic terms. England became a bilingual country, and the impact on the English vocabulary made over this two-hundred-years period is immense: French words from the Norman dialect penetrated every aspect of social life. Here is a very brief list of examples of Norman French borrowings.

Administrative words: state, government, parliament, council, power.

Legal terms: court, judge, justice, crime, prison.

Military terms: army, war, soldier, officer, battle, enemy.

Educational terms: pupil, lesson, library, science, pen, pencil.

Everyday life was not unaffected by the powerful influence of French words. Numerous terms of everyday life were also borrowed from French in this period: e. g. table, plate, saucer, dinner, supper, river, autumn, uncle, etc.

The Renaissance Period. In England, as in all European countries, this period was marked by significant developments in science, art and culture and, also, by a revival of interest in the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome and their languages. Hence, there occurred a considerable number of Latin and Greek borrowings. In contrast to the earliest Latin borrowings (1st c. B. C.), the Renaissance ones were rarely concrete names. They were mostly abstract words (e. g. major, minor, filial, moderate, intelligent, permanent, to elect, to create). There were naturally numerous scientific and artistic terms (datum, status, phenomenon, philosophy, method, music).1 The same is true of Greek Renaissance borrowings (e. g. atom, cycle, ethics, esthete).

The Renaissance was a period of extensive cultural contacts between the major European states. Therefore, it was only natural that new words also entered the English vocabulary from other European languages. The most significant once more were French borrowings. This time they came from the Parisian dialect of French and are known as Parisian borrowings. Examples: regime, routine, police, machine, ballet, matinee, scene, technique, bourgeois, etc. (One should note that these words of French origin sound and «look» very different from their Norman predecessors. We shall return to this question later (see Ch. 4).)

Italian also contributed a considerable number of words to English, e. g. piano, violin, opera, alarm, colonel.

* * *

There are certain structural features which enable us to identify some words as borrowings and even to determine the source language. We have already established that the initial sk usually indicates Scandinavian origin. You can also recognize words of Latin and French origin by certain suffixes, prefixes or endings. The two tables below will help you in this.

The historical survey above is far from complete. Its aim is just to give a very general idea of the ways in which English vocabulary developed and of the major events through which it acquired its vast modern resources.

I. Latin Affixes

Nouns	The suffix -ion	communion, legion, opinion, session, union, etc.
The suffix -tion	relation, revolution, starvation, temptation, unification, etc.
Verbs	The suffix -ate [eit]	appreciate, create, congratulate, etc.
The suffix -ute [ju:t]	attribute, contribute, constitute, distribute, etc.
The remnant suffix -ct	act, conduct, collect, connect, etc.
The remnant suffix -d(e)	applaud, divide, exclude, include, etc.
The prefix dis-	disable, distract, disown, disagree, etc.
Adjectives	The suffix -able	detestable, curable, etc.
The suffix -ate [it]	accurate, desperate, graduate, etc.
The suffix -ant	arrogant, constant, important, etc.
The suffix -enf	absent, convenient, decent, evident, etc.
The suffix -or	s major, minor, junior, senior, etc.
The suffix -al с	т cordial, final, fraternal, maternal, etc.
The suffix -ar	lunar, solar, familiar, etc.

II. French Affixes

Nouns	The suffix -ance	arrogance, endurance, hindrance, etc.
The suffix -erace	consequence, intelligence, patience, etc.
The suffix -merit	appointment, development, experiment, etc.
The suffix -age	courage, marriage, passage, village, etc.
The suffix -ess	tigress, lioness, actress, adventuress, etc.
Adjectives	The suffix -ous	curious, dangerous, joyous, serious, etc.
Verbs	The prefix en-	enable, endear, enact, enfold, enslave, etc.

Notes. 1. The tables represent only the most typical and frequent structural elements of Latin and French borrowings.

2. Though all the affixes represented in the tables are Latin or French borrowings, some of the examples given in the third column are later formations derived from native roots and borrowed affixes (e. g. eatable, lovable).

3. By remnant suffixes are meant the ones that are only Partially preserved in the structure of the word (e. g. Lat. -ct < Lat. -ctus).

It seems advisable to sum up what has been said in a table.

The Etymological Structure of English Vocabulary

The native element1

The borrowed element

I. Indo-European element II. Germanic element III. English Proper element (no earlier than 5th c. A. D.)

I. Celtic (5th — 6th c. A. D.) II. Latin 1st group: 1st c. B. C. 2nd group: 7th c. A. D. 3rd group: the Renaissance period III. Scandinavian (8th — 11th c. A. D.) IV. French 1. Norman borrowings: 11th—13th c. A. D. 2. Parisian borrowings (Renaissance) V. Greek (Renaissance) VI. Italian (Renaissance and later) VII. Spanish (Renaissance and later) VIII. German IX. Indian X. Russian And some other groups

The table requires some explanation. Firstly, it should be pointed out that not only does the second column contain more groups, but it also implies a greater quantity of words. Modern scholars estimate the percentage of borrowed words in the English vocabulary at 65—70 per cent which is an exceptionally high figure: one would certainly expect the native element to prevail. This anomaly is explained by the country’s eventful history and by its many international contacts.

On a straight vocabulary count, considering the high percentage of borrowed words, one would have to classify English as a language of international origin or, at least, a Romance one (as French and Latin words obviously prevail). But here another factor comes into play, the relative frequency of occurrence of words, and it is under this heading that the native Anglo-Saxon heritage comes into its own. The native element in English comprises a large number of high-frequency words like the articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries and, also, words denoting everyday objects and ideas (e. g. house, child, water, go, come, eat, good, bad, etc.).

Furthermore, the grammatical structure is essentially Germanic having remained unaffected by foreign influence.

It is probably of some interest to mention that at various times purists have tried to purge the English language of foreign words, replacing them with Anglo-Saxon ones. One slogan created by these linguistic nationalists was: «Avoid Latin derivatives; use brief, terse Anglo-Saxon monosyllables». The irony is that the only Anglo-Saxon word in the entire slogan is «Anglo-Saxon». [31]

Now let us turn to the first column of the table representing the native element, the original stock of the English vocabulary. The column consists of three groups, only the third being dated: the words of this group appeared in the English vocabulary in the 5th c. or later, that is, after the Germanic tribes migrated to the British Isles. As to the Indo-European and Germanic groups, they are so old that they cannot be dated. It was mentioned in the historical survey opening this chapter that the tribal languages of the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, by the time of their migration, contained only words of Indo-European and Germanic roots plus a certain number of the earliest Latin borrowings.

By the Indo-European element are meant words of roots common to all or most languages of the Indo-European group. English words of this group denote elementary concepts without which no human communication would be possible. The following groups can be identified.1

I. Family relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter.

II. Parts of the human body: foot (cf. R. пядь), nose, lip, heart.

III. Animals: cow, swine, goose.

IV. Plants: tree, birch (cf. R. береза}, corn (cf. R. зерно).

V. Time of day: day, night.

VI. Heavenly bodies: sun, moon, star.

VII. Numerous adjectives: red (cf. Ukr. рудий, R. рыжий), new, glad (cf. R. гладкий), sad, (cf. R. сыт). VIII. The numerals from one to a hundred.

IX. Pronouns — personal (except they which is a Scandinavian borrowing); demonstrative.

X. Numerous verbs: be (cf. R. быть), stand (cf. R. стоять), sit (cf. R. сидеть), eat (cf. R. есть), know (cf. R. знать, знаю).

The Germanic element represents words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages. Some of the main groups of Germanic words are the same as in the Indo-European element.

I. Parts of the human body: head, hand, arm, finger, bone.

II. Animals: bear, fox, calf.

III. Plants: oak, fir, grass.

IV. Natural phenomena: rain, frost.

V. Seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer.1

VI. Landscape features: sea, land.

VII. Human dwellings and furniture: house, room, bench.

VIII. Sea-going vessels: boat, ship.

IX. Adjectives: green, blue, grey, white, small, thick, high, old, good.

X. Verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, answer, make, give, drink.

* * *

It has been mentioned that the English proper element is, in certain respects, opposed to the first two groups. Not only can it be approximately dated, but these words have another distinctive feature: they are specifically English having no cognates2 in other languages whereas for Indo-European and Germanic words such cognates can always be found, as, for instance, for the following words of the Indo-European group.

Star: Germ. Stern, Lat. stella, Gr. aster.

Sad: Germ. satt, Lat. satis, R. сыт, Snscr. sa-.

Stand: Germ. stehen, Lat. stare, R. стоять, Snscr. stha-.

Here are some examples of English proper words. These words stand quite alone in the vocabulary system of Indo-European languages: bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always.

Of course, one might remark that Russian vocabulary also has the words лорд, леди, бой (in the meaning of «native servant»). The explanation is simple: these words have been borrowed by Russian from English and therefore are not cognates of their English counterparts.

It should be taken into consideration that the English proper element also contains all the later formations, that is, words which were made after the 5th century according to English word-building patterns (see Ch. 5, 6) both from native and borrowed morphemes. For instance, the adjective ‘beautiful’ built from the French borrowed root and the native suffix belongs to the English proper element. It is natural, that the quantity of such words is immense.

Exercises

I. Consider your answers to the following.

1. How can you account for the fact that English vocabulary contains such an immense number of words of foreign origin?

2. What is the earliest group of English borrowings? Date it.

3. What Celtic borrowings are there in English? Date them.

4. Which words were introduced into English vocabulary during the period of Christianization?

5. What are the characteristic features of Scandinavian borrowings?

6. When and under what circumstances did England become a bilingual country? What imprint features were left in English vocabulary by this period?

7. What are the characteristic features of words borrowed into English during the Renaissance?

8. What suffixes and prefixes can help you to recognize words of Latin and French origin?

9. What is meant by the native element of English vocabulary?

II. Subdivide all the following words of native origin into:

a) Indo-european, b) Germanic, c) English proper.

Daughter, woman, room, land, cow, moon, sea, red, spring, three, I, lady, always, goose, bear, fox, lord, tree, nose, birch, grey, old, glad, daisy, heart, hand, night» to eat, to see, to make.

III. Read the following jokes. Explain the etymology of the italicized words. If necessary consult a dictionary.1

1. He dropped around to the girl’s house and as he ran up the steps he was confronted by her little brother.

«Hi, Billy.»

«Hi,» said the brat.

«Is your sister expecting me?»

«Yeah.»

«How do you know that?»

«She’s gone out.»

2. A man was at a theatre. He was sitting behind two women whose continuous chatter became more than he could bear. Leaning forward, he tapped one of them on the shoulder.

«Pardon me, madam,» he said, «but I can’t hear».

«You are not supposed to — this is a private conversation,» she hit back.

3. Sonny: Father, what do they make asphalt roads of?

Father: That makes a thousand question you’ve asked today. Do give me a little peace. What do you think would happen if I had asked my father so many questions?

Sonny: You might have learnt how to answer some of mine.

IV. Identify the period of the following Latin borrowings; point out the structural and semantic peculiarities of the words from each period.

Wall, cheese, intelligent, candle, major, moderate, priest, school, street, cherry, music, phenomenon, nun, kitchen, plum, pear, pepper, datum, cup, status, wine, philosophy, method.

V. In the following sentences find examples of Latin borrowings; identify the period of borrowings.

1. The garden here consisted of a long smooth lawn with two rows of cherry trees planted in the grass. 2. They set to pork-pies, cold potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, cold bacon, ham, crabs, cheese, butter, gooseberry-tarts, cherry-tarts, bread, more sausages and yet again pork-pies. 3. Instead of commendation, all we got was a tirade about the condition of the mackintosh sheets which Matron had said were a disgrace both to the hospital and the nursing profession. 4. A cold wind knifing through downtown streets penetrated the thin coat she had on. 5. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. 6. It was the money, of course; money which did strange things to human beings, making them greedy, panicked, at times sub-human. 7. On the morning of burial — taking no chances — an archbishop, a bishop and a monsignor concelebrated a Mass of the Resurrection. A full choir intoned responses to prayers with reassuring volume. Within the cathedral which was filled, a section near the altar had been reserved for Rosselli relatives and friends. 8. The room was full of young men, all talking at once and drinking cups of tea. 9. I made way to the kitchen and tried the kitchen door which gave on to the fire-escape. 10. «Lewis, dear,» Edwina said, «could you interrupt your speech and pour more wine?» 11. All Anna’s life worked to schedule; like a nun, she would have been lost without her watch.

VI. Study the map of Great Britain and write out the games of the cities and towns ending in: a) caster (chester)1 b) wick, thorpe, by.2

VII. Study the map of Great Britain and find the names of places, rivers and hills of Celtic origin.

VIII. In the sentences given below find the examples of Scandinavian borrowings. How can the Scandinavian borrowings be identified?

1. He went on to say that he was sorry to hear that I had been ill. 2. She was wearing a long blue skirt and a white blouse. 3. Two eyes — eyes like winter windows, glared at him with ruthless impersonality. 4. The sun was high, the sky unclouded, the air warm with a dry fresh breeze. 5. If Eastin were right, Wainwright reasoned, the presence of the husband could tie in with Wainwright’s own theory of an outside accomplice. 6. It’s not such a bad thing to be unsure sometimes. It takes us away from rigid thinking.

IX. Read the following jokes and identify the Scandinavian borrowings.

1. «Very sorry, Mr. Brown, but the coffee is exhausted,» the landlady announced.

«Not at all surprised,» came back Mr. Brown. «I’ve seen it growing weaker and weaker every morning.»

2. Small boy: I say, dad, teacher said this morning that the law of gravity kept us on the earth. Is that right?

Father: Yes, my boy, that’s correct.

Small boy: Well, how did we get on before the law was passed?

3. «I want a man to do odd jobs about the house, run errands, one who never answers back and is always ready to do my bidding,» explained a lady to an applicant for a post in the household.

«You’re looking for a husband, ma’am, not a servant,» said the seeker for work.

X. Copy out the examples of Norman and Parisian borrowings from the following passage. Describe the structural peculiarities of these words.

1. It was while they were having coffee that a waitress brought a message to their table. 2.1 knew nothing about the film world and imagined it to be a continuous ferment of personal intrigue. 3. The masseur and majordomo quietly disappeared. Replacing them like or; a more character emerging on stage was a chef, a pale, worried pencil of a man. 4. A limousine and chauffeur, available at any time from the bank’s pool of cars, were perquisites of the executive vice-president’s job, and Alex enjoyed them. 5. He would have dinner quickly and then get down to work. But as he opened the door he smelt Eau-de-Cologne and there was Ruth in a chair b;/ the grate. 6. His bandaged head was silhouetted in the light from the little window. 7. «I don’t see the matter,» said Steven, helping himself to more mayonnaise. 8. Apart from being an unforgivable break of etiquette, you only make yourself extremely ridiculous. 9. However, this John Davenant evidently knew more about the army and commerce than either of them. 10. At last I began to want my breakfast. I began walking in the direction of Madge’s hotel and set down en route at a cafe’ not far from the Opera.

XI. Read the following extract. Which of the italicized borrowings came from Latin and which from French?

Connoisseurs of the song will be familiar with the name of Anna Quentin, distinguished blues singer and versatile vocalist. Miss Quentin’s admirers, who have been regretting her recent retirement from the limelight, will hear with mixed feelings the report that she is bound to Hollywood. Miss Quentin, leaving for a short stay in Paris, refused either to confirm or to deny a rumour that she had signed a long-term contract for work in America.

XII. Explain the etymology of the following words.

Sputnik, kindergarten, opera, piano, potato, tomato, droshky, czar, violin, coffee, cocoa, colonel, alarm, cargo, blitzkrieg, steppe, komsomol, banana, balalaika.

XIII. Think of 10—15 examples of Russian borrowings in English and English borrowings in Russian.

XIV. Read the following text. Identify the etymology of as many words as you can.

The Roman Occupation

For some reason the Romans neglected to overrun the country with fire and sword, though they had both of these; in fact after the Conquest they did not mingle with the Britons at all but lived a semi-detached life in villas. They occupied their time for two or three hundred years in building Roman roads and having Roman Baths, this was called the Roman Occupation, and gave rise to the memorable Roman law, ‘He who baths first baths fast’, which was a good thing and still is. The Roman roads ran absolutely straight in all the directions and all led to Rome. The Romans also built towns wherever they were wanted, and, in addition, a wall between England and Scotland to keep out the savage Picts and Scots.

(From 1066 and All That by C. W. Sellar, R. J. Yeatman)

The Etymological Background of the English Vocabulary. Native
Words in English

Etymology – is a branch of Linguistics studying the origin
of words, their change and development, their linguistic and
extra-linguistic forces modifying their structure, meaning and usage.
The term “Etymology” is derived from the Greek word – “etymon”
– which means the true, original meaning of a word. According to
the etymological principle the English vocabulary is usually divided
into two uneven classes: native words which make up about 30%
of the English vocabulary and borrowed words which make up about
70% of the English vocabulary.

Native words are words which belong to the original word
stock. Words adopted from foreign languages are known as borrowed
words, or loan words, or borrowings. Though native words
constitute only about 30% of the English vocabulary they make up the
greatest part of the basic word stock (лексикологическое
ядро словаря).

The Basic Word Stock – is the stable stork of the most
frequently used three or four thousand words which constitute the
core of the vocabulary, preserving the national peculiarities of the
language. The changes in the Basic Word Stork are very slow and not
easily perceptible.

Native words have a higher frequency value than most of the
borrowings. They occur in any spoken or written speech forming the
foundation and framework of the English language, e.g. words of
native origin include most of the conjunctions, numerals,
prepositions, pronouns and strong verbs, the definite and indefinite
articles are also of native origin.

The native element in modern English is mostly monosyllabic but as
for their meanings they are usually polysemantic. They show great
word building power and make up the majority of proverbs and set
expressions, e.g. water – to water, watery, waterproof,
waterfall, “blood is thicker than water” (свой
своего
не
обидит);
milk – milky way, milkman — “ it’s no use crying over spilt
milk” etc.

According to their origin native words may be divided into 3 groups:

• Indo-European

• Common German (общегерманские)

• Specifically English or English words proper

Native words of the Indo-European
origin are the oldest. They have correlated words in different
Indo-European languages: Romanic, Slavonic, Germanic and even in
Sanskrit. Here belong such words as: father,
mother, son, daughter, brothe, sister; sun, moon, star, wind, water,
wood, hill, stone, night, day; goose, wolf, cow, tree, corn, bull;
ear, tooth, eye, foot, heart, lip, nose; hard, quick, slow, red,
white, new, glad, sad; 1-100; I, you, he, my, that, who; to bear, to
do, to be, to sit, to stand, to eat.

Native words of the Common Germanic Stock have
parallels in the languages of the Germanic group only: Dutch, German,
Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic etc. but not in Russian, French or
Italian. They constitute a larger part of the native words in
English. Here belong such words as: head,
arm, finger, hand, bone; summer, winter, spring, time, week; storm,
rain, flood, ice, ground, sea, earth, land; bridge, house, bench,
boat, ship, shop, room, coal, iron, lead, cloth, fur; hat, shirt,
shoe; care, evil, hope, life, need; sheep, horse, fox, crow, oak,
grass, bear; broad, dead, deaf, deep, grey, blue, green, high, old,
good; down, out, before; all, each, self, such, here, there, near; to
go, to tell, to speak, to say, to answer, to see, to hear, to drink,
to sing, to make, to learn, to have, to rise, to bake, to burn, to
buy, to drive, to keep, to meet, to send, to shoot.

The 3^rd
group of native words is represented by the so-called English words
proper which have no cognates or parallels in other languages. They
are: boy, girl,
lady, lord, daisy, always, woman, bird, word.